Guild Wars 2

You can read the first part here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-to-Fix-WVW-5/first#post5822763

Ok to continue on my quest to hopefully open the eyes of Anet here goes….

1.) You may or may not understand or agree that without 20 or so committed WVW’ers WVW becomes broken but its true. When people come to WVW and there is no tag or worst yet very few players most of them just leave (logout or go pve). The idea that every server needs the egotistical player that does nothing but WVW at least 90% of the time is just a fact, I have seen it and lived it since launch of gw2 and dealt with it in daoc also. Without them WVW dies off. Based on this knowledge and knowing us WVW fanatics basically have no life and spend most of our awake time in front of a pc running around a virtual world, it would seem obvious that certain things are needed to make it enjoyable for them. Things like an environment that mimics the outside world that people like us seldom experience. Just to name a few… sunshine, green fields of grass, birds etc, trees, streams, ponds, lakes. One of the things that makes EB nice is it mimics the real world more so than any other map. EB is pleasant and at times downright visually stimulating. The new BL maps on the other hand feel dark, dead and fake and leave me feeling somewhat depressed. Nothing about the new BL maps fills my need for stimulation of the real world that I lack because of spending all my time if front of a PC. Add to that they have pve mechanics in them and flowing lava and portals and layouts that are confusing just adds to my play time dissatisfaction with the new BL map. FYI did you know snow on the ground gives and uplifting feeling to players, a feeling of being refreshed. Brown dirt and dark rocky walls with no vegetation is not uplifting! This again may seem petty but people like an environment for reasons sometimes they don’t even realize, especially if they spend 10 hours a day in that environment. Why do you think Las Vegas uses the colors of blue and red in most of their casinos or why do they pump oxygen into the casinos? Its because they understand the importance of environment.

This has been said before but I don’t feel Anet gets it or how important it is. WVW IS ABOUT PEOPLE not AI, gimmicks or pve meta events. Those things just irritate the kitten out of committed WVW’ers. Please give us an environment that is pleasant to play in and the game doesn’t get in the way of doing what WVW’ers do (fight other players and protect our assets).

You give me a server with 20 committed WVW’ers and I will show you a WVW server that has life to it. A place that casuals can come into and know that someone will be there to play with them. If you read the first part of this article you will understand some of the other reasons WVW has lost the fanatic WVW’ers that make it work.

2.)Where are the easy to kill mobs for my stacks? Another seemingly petty thing but in EB its fairly easy to run out from the base portal and kill 25 mobs and get my stacks but in the new BL’s it’s a hassle. Just another petty thing. Wonder how many petty things equals a big thing? BTW why can’t my stacks travel with me as I change WVW maps? Is it asking to much to make the game a tad more enjoyable for people?

3.)Portals… why do I feel Anet thinks being able to move around an WVW map should be difficult. Why can’t we have 2-4 portals strategically located around the map for people to use. Portals that can’t be contested. People want to be able to get around in a WVW fairly quickly so they can follow the action. Doesn’t mean if you added some outter map edge towers that we have to be able to port to them directly but we should be able to get to the garri or the keeps fairly fast. Players should have to fight to take those assets not ninja them with contesting a portal or just knowing people can’t respond fast enough. Ninja taking a tower is fine but not a garri, keep or the likes of sm.

4.) Why you burning up my processor doing needless things. The little dots that have been added to the mini map showing enemy movement is just wasting bandwidth and adds really nothing to the game. Its hard to believe you committed devs to coding this up.

5.) Anet at launch had the best WVW out there and it was packed so what happened? This may seem surprisingly simple but it was just about population balance and that’s it. There was nothing wrong with the maps or the mechanics of WVW at gw2 launch and was a ton of fun. Yes the maps need to be bigger and yes a few bugs like hacking into towers or sm lord needed to be fixed and still do but why did Anet feel that WVW needed a huge overhaul like the new BL maps. WVW wasn’t broke just needed some loving in the right places and some bugs fixed that have been around forever. Whats the old saying… “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke”. I just don’t get Anets thinking in this area of the game. Anet failed to address the biggest WVW problem of population balance and instead added new maps with a pve feel and an environment that feels dead and dreary in hopes to giving WVW a shot in the arm so to speak. The thing is yes WVW will probably get some new players but by fixing what wasn’t broke and ignoring what was broke have we really gained anything other than taking a few bucks from a lot of people. Seems Anet is dead set on shooting themselves in the foot. Read part one for my suggestions to the biggest problem in WVW population balance.

Ok its late and this Oleman is getting tired, this enough food for thought for now. I sure hope gw2 WVW doesn’t die it has been such an enjoyment for me and many others over the last 3 years. Or maybe I should say I hope that one day soon I can login and find that WVW has become fun again.

Part Three:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-to-Fix-WVW-Part-Three/first#post5828948

Noob.5908:

You can read the first part here…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-to-Fix-WVW-5/first#post5822763

Ok to continue on my quest to hopefully open the eyes of Anet here goes….

You might want to post it on reddit then….. just saying…. XD

I agree with environment playing a part of enjoyment, it just feels better roaming around in the pve winter zones like frostgorge than say orr, but I’m not sure that’s the reason EBG is popular. For WvW players it’s about being able to move around quickly from one place to another and finding good open areas or chokes to fight in, and EBG has a good mixture of both.

Also the structures play an important part on the EBG map with all of them placed in ways that can reach other important structures around them, every side has at least two towers that can hit the keep and two that can hit SMC. Something the new map is lacking, as well as having it’s waypoints changed which messed up gameplay on on it.

P.S EBG also has an important piece of structure in the middle of the map that lures players to it, and promotes constant fighting, Stonemist Castle. Unlike the other failed middle of the map areas, the lake, the ruins, the oasis, and even the middle area of eotm “the juncture”, have all come off as areas too annoying to bother with.

That whole “environment” thing… YES. I had mentioned how bland and vague the ground looked (especially when trying to find places to drop down and not die) in another post. Here’s my take (aka – personal opinion) on the Desert Borderlands environment:

1) Northeast tower area – ? the whole area around that tower feels like wasted space… which was the point I assume since it’s a necro tower?
1a) Northeast camp – love that whole Utah canyon vibe.

2) Northwest tower area – /yes …this, this is a really nice looking tower and surrounding area.
2a) Northwest camp is alright. kitten in the rock next to the Fire keep. (love that mob stacking choke that makes flipping this camp easy.)

*rabbit: I still don’t get the whole isolated objectives that were supposed to hinder enemy players movement around the map but don’t because they’re isolated objectives that don’t have anything to do with hindering enemy movement around the map. I feel totally let down that there are soooooo many chokes in this map where a tower -should- be but there isn’t one. Instead the towers are sitting around gathering dust. (pun intended).

3) Fire keep – the underground part? are we in a volcano or a Crow Canyon pueblo fort? or both… yeah, oooook. Above ground part? /yes Wow! look at that, a real desert in a Desert Borderlands map. I like it, except for those two EotM tower things sticking up outta the ground… why?

4) Air keep – I kinda like the Aztec vibe. It definitely fits with the Tengu. That lord’s room… /yesssssssssss.

*rabbit: What the kitten is up with the 2 second (kiddingnotkidding) respawn rate of the vets at both of these keeps? Seriously, that is so annoying I -hate- going anywhere near these with a small group (3 to 5).

5) Oasis – you know it probably looks nice, but since I have almost nowhere to actually look at the place with an unobstructed view… smh, but again, I guess that was the point. smh2.0, why’d it have to be dinosaurs? smh3.0, go google desert oasis images, what do you get? mostly a large shallow pond surrounded by vegetation, palm trees, etc. smh4.0, guess what would be a great place to have something other than chokes and obstructed views? …how about a -large- shallow (too shallow to swim in) pond surrounded by vegetation and palm trees where fights -would- take place right in the middle of the map. THAT, would be fun. (sorry, I’m chasing rabbits again).

disclaimer: I haven’t spent much time in the southern half of the map… sorry, I just haven’t… the canyon in the souteast makes me nauseous, literally.

6) Southwest tower area – is this the one with the Ogres? or is it the Southeast tower? Anyways, I can’t really critique these well because I just haven’t spent enough time in these area.
6a) Southwest camp area – I like it, especially since it’s the ONLY place on this whole map that (at least) makes me feel like I’m not running 6,000 miles from a camp to a keep, and it looks like it fits right into the actual desert theme of the Fire keep. I like it.

7) Southeast tower area – I like the look of this tower too.
7) Southeast camp area – ok, I gotta stop a minute… what the kitten happened here? Running around and around and up and down and around and down and up and around and down and up and …. you get the point? I certainly do… let’s run around on wooden sidewalks stuck in the side of cliffs… nauseating and repulsive and bland visually. It’s not that I get vertigo looking at it; it’s just uninteresting to me. I can’t stand this area at all, mainly because it just annoys me to death. (don’t really have to worry about me trying to take this camp, I avoid it).

Noob.5908:

4.) Why you burning up my processor doing needless things. The little dots that have been added to the mini map showing enemy movement is just wasting bandwidth and adds really nothing to the game. Its hard to believe you committed devs to coding this up.

Thats one of the things about HoT I actually like. And I hope it will be expanded so guards around structures mark enemy players same way.

FogLeg.9354:

Noob.5908:

4.) Why you burning up my processor doing needless things. The little dots that have been added to the mini map showing enemy movement is just wasting bandwidth and adds really nothing to the game. Its hard to believe you committed devs to coding this up.

Thats one of the things about HoT I actually like. And I hope it will be expanded so guards around structures mark enemy players same way.

Me too. It was a good addition to gameplay.

Sometimes as a developer what you need to do is not overcomplicate things. Don’t fix what’s not broken, and instead micro manage til you get it right. Not big overhauls that break everything.

Jayne.9251:

Me too. It was a good addition to gameplay.

What did it really add to gameplay though? IMO removing the player interaction of scouting add nothing, it only removes gameplay.

Also, we already had this feature by proxy – the contest swords. It could have easily been expanded to sentries without giving everyone x-ray vision and the ability to see if its a zerg or solo player (ie marking white swords warning on the minimap, just like yellow swords does). It could have been the eqvivalent of the sentry yelling “hey players, I see enemies, come help me!”. The strategical gameplay around this across-the-zone-x-ray feature is negligable and benefit the zerg in every scenario (just like the barricades, lol) while a single/small group roamer has no option but to expose himself if he want to go through the sentry.

Dawdler.8521:

Jayne.9251:

Me too. It was a good addition to gameplay.

What did it really add to gameplay though? IMO removing the player interaction of scouting add nothing, it only removes gameplay.

Also, we already had this feature by proxy – the contest swords. It could have easily been expanded to sentries without giving everyone x-ray vision and the ability to see if its a zerg or solo player (ie marking white swords warning on the minimap, just like yellow swords does). It could have been the eqvivalent of the sentry yelling “hey players, I see enemies, come help me!”. The strategical gameplay around this across-the-zone-x-ray feature is negligable and benefit the zerg in every scenario (just like the barricades, lol) while a single/small group roamer has no option but to expose himself if he want to go through the sentry.

I find it actually enhances my scouting abilities. I can be in different part of the maps and my eye will catch a little red dot up in the top Northeast corner.

I still have to run there like I did before as a scout, but this gives me an immediate signal, that you can miss if you aren’t paying attention.

It’s like scouting 2.0.

It’s fantastic.

There is obviously 2 views to the new sentry ability to expose enemy players. I find it now more interesting and more strategical, since you have to decide if you want to go through enemy sentry and become visible or go around it using longer route while remaining hidden. The value of sentries is now much higher and you should always capture those points, instead of being largely ignored as they used to be.

But it boils down to why different people play. I wish to find enemy and fight them, I think chasing enemies around in the map is boring, so everything that makes finding enemy easier is good. I know for some people it is completely opposite, they spend large amount of time avoiding fights, taking objectives without defenders and running away when anyone shows up.

The point I was trying to make about the sentry thing is we have enough problem with lag and crashing during big fights that it seems counter productive to be adding more stress on gpu’s and bandwidth pipes just for something that serves such a small small thing. It really wasn’t needed and would have been time better invested on other stuff(like fixing the hacking into sm lord). I know my gpu runs hotter now with HoT and I don’t see much benefit for my gpu being worn out faster. It’s a small thing, I probably shouldn’t have even brought it up, wvw has bigger problems than this new little feature.

Xenesis I thought about posting this to Reddit but if Anet doesn’t read their own WVW boards and get some of the good feedback that I have read on this very WVW board then….

It’s game over, Anet is going to do what they want to do regardless of where feedback is posted.